Background Briefing: May 19, 2022

 

The Authors Who Revealed Tapes of Top Republicans Speaking as Patriots in Private But Traitors in Public

We begin with the authors of a new book which reveals the disconnect between what top Republican leaders say in private and what they espouse in public, particularly when it comes to Donald Trump who McConnell loathes, McCarthy is fed up with and Senator Graham fawns over. Joining us are Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, both national political correspondents for The New York Times and political analysts for CNN as well as the co-authors of the new book, just out, This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future which depicts a fired-up Republican party in a cult-like thrall of Donald Trump while portraying a Democratic party led by Joe Biden as inept and out of touch. We discuss how the Democrats are at least sane although riven by petty quarrels and weighed down by “identity politics” with their elderly leaders unable to grasp the brutal political agenda of the Republicans.  As for Trump’s GOP, they are hell-bent on the destruction of American democracy, or else too craven to stand up to Trump who they will follow in lockstep to the presidency in 2024 as he tramples on our democratic norms and desecrates our values and virtues.

 

The Supreme Court OK’s Bribing Senators and The Israel Lobby Goes After Minority Congresswomen They Deem as Too Progressive

Then we speak with John Nichols, The Nation magazine’s Washington correspondent whose books include People Get Ready: The Fight Against a Jobless Economy and a Citizenless Democracy, Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse: A Field Guide to the Most Dangerous People in America, and most recently, The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party: The Enduring Legacy of Henry Wallace’s Anti-Fascist, Anti-Racist Politics. We discuss his latest articles at The Nation, “The Supreme Court Just Streamlined the Process for Bribing Senators” and “Summer Lee is Exactly What a Democrat Should Be.”